Raging SoCal wildfire burning with ferocity never seen by fire crews

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. -- A wildfire with a ferocity
never seen before by veteran California firefighters raced up and down canyons,
instantly engulfing homes and forcing thousands of people to flee, some running
for their lives just ahead of the flames.

Authorities could not immediately say how many homes had
been destroyed, but they warned that the number will be large.

Raging California wildfire forces thousands to flee

“There will be a lot of families that come home to
nothing,” San Bernardino County Fire Chief Mark Hartwig said after flying
over a fire scene he described as “devastating.”

“It hit hard. It hit fast. It hit with an intensity
that we hadn’t seen before,” he said.

No deaths were reported, but cadaver dogs were searching the
ruins for anyone who was overrun by the flames.

The cause of the fire wasn’t immediately known.

The blaze is also scorching parts of historic Route 66, including burning down a famous diner, CBS Los Angeles reported. The Summit Inn​ was a familiar sight for drivers traveling between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The roadhouse was linked to many legends, including one about Elvis Presley. It was said the singer stopped at the Summit Inn, and kicked the jukebox after he saw it contained none of his records. The establishment survived a catastrophe two years ago, when a drunk driver crashed into the building. New owners had recently taken over the Summit Inn, promising a restoration.

Five years of drought have turned the state’s wildlands into
a tinder box, with eight fires currently burning from Shasta County in the far
north to Camp Pendleton just north of San Diego.

“In my 40 years of fighting fire, I’ve never seen fire
behavior so extreme,” Incident Commander Mike Wakoski said a day after the
latest blaze broke out Tuesday in Cajon Pass, a critical highway and rail
corridor through mountain ranges that separate Southern California’s major
population centers from the Mojave Desert and Las Vegas.

Residents like Vi Delgado and her daughter April Christy,
who had been through a major brushfire years before, said they had never seen
anything like it either.

“No joke, we were literally being chased by the
fire,” a tearful April Christy said in a voice choked with emotion as she
and her mother sat in their minivan in an evacuation center parking lot in
Fontana. They did not go inside because their dogs, three Chihuahuas and a
mixed-breed mutt, were not allowed.

“You’ve got flames on the side of you. You’ve got
flames behind you,” Christy said, describing a harrowing race down a
mountain road. She was led by a sheriff’s patrol car in front while a
California Highway Patrol vehicle trailed behind and a truck filled with
firefighters battled flames alongside her.

She and her mother, onsite caretakers at the Angels and Paws
animal rescue shelter in Devore Heights, said it was only moments after they
smelled smoke that flames exploded all around them. They grabbed their pets and
tried to rescue nine other shelter dogs and three cats, but a sheriff’s deputy
told them there was no time.

“You won’t make it. Save yourself. Take your truck and
leave,” Delgado said the deputy shouted at her, adding that he and others
would try to rescue the animals. She learned later that authorities did save
the animals, but officials could not tell her if her home survived.

More than 34,000 homes and some 82,000 people were under
evacuation warnings as firefighters concentrated their efforts on saving homes
in the mountain communities of Lytle Creek, Wrightwood and Phelan. They
implored residents not to think twice if told to leave, but it appears many
were staying.

“From reports that we were hearing, possibly up to half
didn’t leave,” said Lyn Sieliet, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman.

“It does change the way that we can fight fire,”
she added, “Now we have to worry about the people in there as well as
trying to protect the structures and trying to build a line of defense as the
fire comes toward that area.”

Six firefighters were briefly trapped by flames during the
fire’s early hours, when occupants of a home refused to leave and the crew
stayed to protect them.

“This moved so fast,” said Darren Dalton, 51, who
along with his wife and son had to get out of his house in Wrightwood. “It
went from ‘Have you heard there’s a fire?’ to ‘mandatory evacuation’ before you
could take it all in. This is a tight little community up here. Always in rally
mode. Suddenly it’s a ghost town.”

Hundreds of cars packed with belongings and animals left the
town. The air for miles around the blaze was filled with smoke.

Although there was no official count on how many homes were
lost, Eric Sherwin of the San Bernardino County Fire Department said Tuesday
that he had seen at least a dozen buildings go up in flames, some of them
homes. Among them was the Summit Inn, a historic Route 66 diner near Interstate
15. Countless big rigs were parked along both sides of the highway on
Wednesday, waiting for it to reopen.

Arson arrest in California wildfire

Less than 24 hours after the blaze began 60 miles east of
Los Angeles, authorities had assembled a fleet of 10 air tankers, 15
helicopters and an army of 1,300 firefighters, many of them just off the lines
of a wildfire that burned for 10 days just to the east.

At a dawn briefing, half the firefighters raised their hands
when asked how many had just come from one of the other infernos burning across
California. In all, 10,000 firefighters are fighting the eight ongoing blazes.

One major fire, north of San Francisco, was fading and about
4,000 people in the town of Clearlake were allowed to return home.

Their relief was tempered by anger at a 40-year-old manauthorities believe set the blaze​ that wiped out several blocks of the small
town of Lower Lake over the weekend. That fire destroyed 175 homes and other
structures in the working-class community.

Damin Pashilk is charged with 14 counts of arson in
connection with 12 separate fires dating back to July 2015 and one count of
attempted arson. He appeared in court Wednesday but did not enter a plea.